Office Hours — Today, January 8
| Jan 8 | 8:55 AM |
| Mark M. | has entered the room |
| Mark M. | turned on guest access |
| Jan 8 | 9:00 AM |
| NetApex | has entered the room |
| NetApex | Good morning |
| Mark M. | Howdy! |
| NetApex | I finally remembered on the correct day!! :) |
| NetApex | I have a huge huge favor to ask of you |
| Mark M. | Huge huge? |
| Mark M. | Not sure I can handle that |
| Mark M. | :-) |
| NetApex | Huge
for me, cake for you I bet. I have been working on a soundboard for a
couple of weeks now and I can not get the "save to sdcard" part working. |
| Mark M. | you have the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission? |
| NetApex | Mainly because.. well.. I don't have a clue what I am doing lol. Just learning a bit of java. |
| NetApex | Actually that part isn't even the issue yet. It's the contextmenu part.. or should I be using the onlongclick to pass the info |
| NetApex | heck, mind if I upload the java I have for it? |
| Mark M. | Sure, though if it's long, I'd recommend you use a pastebin or something |
| NetApex | It isn't too big I don't think |
| Mark M. | Campfire can handle source code, but long ones get to be troublesome sometimes |
| NetApex | |
| Mark M. | OK |
| Mark M. | Ah, as a file -- OK -- hold on |
| Jan 8 | 9:05 AM |
| Mark M. | Them's a lot of buttons! |
| NetApex | I rewrote it from my original version (that I have in the market now) which seemed to FC a lot |
| NetApex | lol yeah |
| NetApex | Ran out of alphabet :) |
| Mark M. | OK, I see where you have context menu stuff commented out |
| NetApex | I got tired of trying |
| NetApex | lol |
| NetApex | I was going to try onlongclick.. and that threw me so I removed it and was going to work on context again |
| Mark M. | Part of your problem in the commented-out stuff is that you're trying to use AdapterView, but you're not using an AdapterView. |
| NetApex | aside from the samples in the books here, this is my first real on my own app... so be gentle |
| Mark M. | By
which I mean you can't cast ContextMenuInfo menuInfo to
AdapterView.AdapterContextMenuInfo, since the context menu is on a
Button, not an AdapterView (e.g., ListView). |
| NetApex | views seem to have me a bit confused as well, but what you just said makes sense |
| Mark M. | The Button the user long-tapped on should be the View cv parameter to onCreateContextMenu() |
| NetApex | ok but is there something already made for that.. like a ButtonView.ButtonContextMenuInfo or something? |
| Mark M. | I don't know why you would need it. |
| NetApex | Or do I have to become smart and think instead of being lazy and using built in things? :) |
| NetApex | Oh? |
| Mark M. | Just cast cv to be a Button? |
| Mark M. | If all you want is the caption of the button, use: ((Button)cv).getText() |
| NetApex | here is what I want, and what I have been able to figure out... |
| Jan 8 | 9:10 AM |
| NetApex | I
want on long click to be able to say "save as ringtone" which I have
figured out. But if they click to save it, it doesn't know what file it
is named and I don't know how to pass (cast?) that. Also the text from
the button would be good to have for a name of the file. I just learned
that 2 minutes ago from you now so I may be able to do that. :) |
| Mark M. | Well...I think you have a few challenges here. |
| NetApex | so can I get rid of the onlongclick listener stuff and just use contextmenu? or should I toss it all and start anew? |
| riley | has entered the room |
| Mark M. | Hold on one moment... |
| riley | Hello |
| NetApex | ok |
| NetApex | Hello thre |
| NetApex | there |
| Mark M. | howdy, riley! |
| Mark M. | As I see it, there are four main gaps in what you have and what you want |
| NetApex | ok |
| Mark M. | First, there's getting the user to indicate they want to save the sound as a ringtone. |
| Mark M. | Either a long-click listener or a context menu could work |
| NetApex | context is my choice then |
| NetApex | I don't know longclick yet |
| Mark M. | No problem. |
| Jan 8 | 9:15 AM |
| Mark M. | You can drop the long-click listener and leave your registerForContextMenu() calls in place, then. |
| NetApex | done |
| NetApex | also removed adapter view info |
| Mark M. | OK. So now you should be able to display a context menu with the appropriate title, derived from the caption of the Button. |
| Mark M. | Second,
you need to figure out, once they choose the context menu item, which
raw resource it corresponds to, based on the Button. |
| NetApex | that is the bear for me |
| NetApex | that is why I have the alert dialog there... which never shows the correct choice lol |
| Mark M. | Unfortunately, onContextItemSelected() does not pass in the View |
| NetApex | ahhhh |
| NetApex | and the pain begins |
| Mark M. | The
simplest solution is for you to probably have a private data member
that you populate in onCreateContextMenu(), holding what information
you need should the user actually choose the menu option. |
| NetApex | ok, I was lazy and named the files a,b,c,blah blah... so in effect how would I go about that? |
| Mark M. | One trick that I have used is to take advantage of setTag() |
| Mark M. | When you set up your Buttons, call setTag() on each, passing in the R.raw.x value for its corresponding raw resource. |
| Jan 8 | 9:20 AM |
| NetApex | so in the area where I do the setOnClickListener(this); I can follow it by a setTag(R.raw.a); right? |
| Mark M. | This
lets you do two things. 1) You can use a single OnClickListener for all
the buttons, since you can get the raw resource ID to play back via
calling getTag() on the Button. 2) You can then get the raw resource ID
via getTag() in onCreateContextMenu() and store it in a private data
member. |
| Mark M. | Right |
| NetApex | Whoo hoo.. I understood something lol |
| NetApex | ok one sec, trying to comprehend your last statement |
| Mark M. | The
third and fourth gaps -- getting at the resource stream and writing it
to a file -- I think you have already in your commented-out code. |
| NetApex | I thought that looked right too.. just couldn't get the right info there to make it work. |
| NetApex | ok, back to the single onclicklistener |
| NetApex | I could cut out about 45 lines of code if I got that setup! But.. how? lol |
| NetApex | riley: sorry for hogging so much of the time here, feel free to ask questions or whatever as well! |
| Mark M. | I
am assuming you are using android:onClick (or whatever that syntax is)
in your layout to tie the buttons to the various agrail() and so on
methods, right? |
| NetApex | no, that gets tied all in the code.. I suck with layouts right now too so I went basic... uploading |
| Mark M. | Oh, wait, I see it |
| Jan 8 | 9:25 AM |
| NetApex | ok not uploading then hehe |
| NetApex | xml is easy (I suppose) but I haven't really played with it enough yet either to be fluent |
| NetApex | I figured I would get it working first, then go back and work on looks |
| NetApex | which might not be the best idea since my first version FC'd all the time |
| Mark M. | Right,
so in onClick(), you would get the raw resource ID via getTag() on the
passed-in View. Then, you'd just execute the same stuff you have in any
one of the agrail() methods, using the raw resource ID from getTag(). |
| riley | Don't
worry about it, I remembered this session was on when I glanced at my
gcal earlier so I thought I would drop by and see what is going on. I
only have a fairly small question (more app design than code) so I'll
let you guys finish this one first. Who knows, I might learn something! |
| NetApex | heheh ok |
| NetApex | ok let me see if I have the right area here |
| NetApex | public void onClick (View vv)? |
| Mark M. | Yes |
| Mark M. | It's implementation could be: |
| Mark M. | public void onClick(View vv) { |
| Mark M. | if (mp !=null){mp.stop();} |
| Mark M. | mp=MediaPlayer.create(this, ((Integer)vv.getTag()).intValue());' |
| Mark M. | mp.start(); |
| Mark M. | } |
| Mark M. | and ignore that rogue ' I stuck at the end of the long line (typo) |
| NetApex | heheh |
| Mark M. | The vv is your Button |
| Mark M. | Your Button has the raw resource ID in its tag |
| Jan 8 | 9:30 AM |
| Mark M. | You're just then taking advantage of that to avoid the whole chain of if() statements and all the per-button methods. |
| Mark M. | Should save ~200 lines of code |
| NetApex | so I could lose the calls to the "public void wound()" and have it work simpler then in the onClick area |
| NetApex | cool |
| NetApex | seriously..
I love the books, but being able to talk to someone about it too, yeah
I love my wife!! She got me the subscription for Christmas! |
| NetApex | ok,
I am going to change some things around and see what I come up with..
all you riley. I will have more questions in a bit :) |
| NetApex | Thanks a ton Mark |
| Mark M. | No problem -- over to you, riley |
| riley | Right |
| riley | I have an app that sends (and receives) data from the Google App engine |
| riley | To
do this I'm using the RESTlet framework which works well and It passes
a Form with data up and gets a response of just a String in a HTTP POST |
| Mark M. | OK |
| riley | But I now have a need to pass in and receive XML back |
| riley | so, long story short do you know of a good example of parsing XML in Android with DOM |
| Mark M. | Well, I'm not sure I'd use the DOM unless necessary |
| Mark M. | It's slow and RAM-intensive |
| riley | Other suggesstions? |
| Mark M. | SAX is a better solution |
| riley | Ah, I see. |
| Jan 8 | 9:35 AM |
| riley | Know of a good example of SAX then? :p |
| Mark M. | gadzooks! ExampleDepot.com reorganized their site! |
| Mark M. | |
| Mark M. | That link gives you the skeleton |
| Mark M. | DOM and SAX parsing is just standard Java from Android' |
| Mark M. | er, Android's perspective |
| Mark M. | So, any Java example should work |
| riley | Ah, thanks mark :-) |
| riley | I told you it was a quick question :p |
| riley | hehe |
| NetApex | Heheh, yeah, makes me feel behind the times lol |
| Jan 8 | 9:40 AM |
| NetApex | |
| NetApex | ok made a couple changes, haven't run it through anything yet to see what is wrong, but just from first glance... |
| NetApex | All of the onclicklisteners... there should be a way to be rid of them too right? |
| Mark M. | I think Campfire just served up the same file again |
| NetApex | renaming for a sec then |
| Mark M. | Oh, never mind, chose the wrong link |
| NetApex | ehehe |
| Mark M. | It's OK. The top link is the newer one. |
| Mark M. | I don't see where you're setting the tags on the Buttons. |
| NetApex | oh crap.. yeah that is because I forgot |
| NetApex | but I remembered to call those non existent tags |
| Mark M. | Also,
in onCreateContextMenu(), you'll need to call getTag() on the View cv
parameter and store that as an int somewhere (e.g., private int
contextMenuResource). |
| Jan 8 | 9:45 AM |
| Mark M. | Then, contextMenuResource replaces info.id in the first line of your commented-out block |
| NetApex | ok |
| NetApex | I changed the cv to vv... but they do need to be seperate views don't they? |
| Mark M. | Huh? |
| NetApex | vv is what I was using for the button view |
| Mark M. | Oh, sorry, I didn't see the name change. |
| NetApex | cv for context... then I thought about it and made it all vv... |
| NetApex | but I don't know if that was "legal" or not |
| Mark M. | Yes,
in onCreateContextMenu(), you would call vv.getTag(), save that as an
int data member, and use that int in onContextItemSelected() |
| Mark M. | Yes, that's legal |
| NetApex | ok cool |
| NetApex | (views are getting a little clearer I think) |
| NetApex | in the oncreatecontextmenu... I added name=.... |
| NetApex | would that be the correct format for what I am trying to do? |
| Jan 8 | 9:50 AM |
| Mark M. | That depends on what you are trying to do. |
| Jan 8 | 9:50 AM |
| Mark M. | You
used to be trying to put the Button caption in the context menu title:
menu.setHeaderTitle(((Button) info.targetView).getText()); |
| Mark M. | That would now be menu.setHeaderTitle(((Button)vv).getText()) |
| Mark M. | You don't have a name variable declared, AFAICT |
| NetApex | ahh ok, so no variable needed to pass it, just call it right there |
| Mark M. | Yup |
| NetApex | that is cool |
| NetApex | ok declaring tags is my last bit I think |
| NetApex | I wouldn't even need to setTag(R.raw.a) I could just use (a) right? |
| Mark M. | No, you need R.raw.a |
| Mark M. | There is no a |
| Mark M. | R.raw.a is an integer identifier of the raw resource |
| NetApex | got it |
| Jan 8 | 9:55 AM |
| NetApex | so example... button0.setTag(R.raw.a); yay?! |
| Mark M. | That should work. setTag() takes an Object, but Java "autoboxing" will convert the int into an Integer for you. |
| NetApex | is there a better way of doing it? |
| NetApex | A more professional way I should say |
| Mark M. | No, that's just fine |
| NetApex | ok |
| NetApex | If I ever end up making something very cool you are being added in the credits :) |
| Mark M. | Thanks! |
| Mark M. | Happy to help! |
| NetApex | I love learning this stuff |
| NetApex | Next time I will have some XML parsing questions for my next app idea :) |
| Mark M. | Well, that's about it for today's chat session. |
| NetApex | Thanks once again! |
| Mark M. | I have two scheduled for next week (Monday evening and Thursday morning, US Eastern time) |
| Mark M. | Have a delightful day! |
| NetApex | you too |
| Jan 8 | 10:00 AM |
| NetApex | See ya Riley! |
| NetApex | has left the room |
| riley | has left the room |
| Mark M. | turned off guest access |
Office Hours
People in this transcript
- Mark Murphy
- NetApex
- riley
